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Bread

French Brioche

A yeasted bread with butter and eggs, shaped into rolls or loaf, baked after rising.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

French Brioche

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk and yeast to set a sponge.

  2. Once the sponge is ready, break in the eggs, then add the sugar and salt.

  3. Mix in flour until combined, then add the softened butter to form a smooth dough.

  4. Let the dough rise, then work it over several times and set aside to cool and stiffen.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into rolls or finger shapes, cutting one in a zig-zag pattern for a Vienna roll.

  2. For the French Brioche, shape it like a cottage loaf with a large flat bottom and small top, cutting on the sides.

  3. Place the rolls on baking pans and brush with an egg wash before baking.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add richness, structure and colour to the crumb and help bind the dough.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives the dough its rich, smooth texture.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives it an airy crumb.
Flour
Provides the gluten structure that holds the dough together and supports its rise.
Milk
Adds moisture to hydrate the flour and help form the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and feeds the yeast, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Working the dough after the rise. Brioche dough is very soft and rich in butter and eggs, so it must be cooled and stiffened before shaping. Shaping warm, slack dough can make it tear or spread and lose its form in the oven.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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